


lewd and sunless land

by caramelchameleon



Category: Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (RPG), Nobilis - Jenna Moran
Genre: Brainwashing, Broken Bones, F/F, Multi, Torture, Vivisection, miscellaneous generic excrucians, misuse of heart magic to unwind, of various flavors, ribcage fisting, torturing regenerative immortals: difficult but not impossible
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 00:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelchameleon/pseuds/caramelchameleon
Summary: backing up miscellaneous stories from tumblr, smut and gore quarantine zone...still almost entirely de Montreal.





	1. dissection

**Author's Note:**

> all characters are of legal age, or aged up appropriately, or timeless immortal entities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a bleak anatomy lesson

Eyes full of stars. No more than mild curiosity, bland interest, in those faces arrayed around the table. Some leaning in for a better view, a few clearly bored, but most were studious and attentive as the scalpel cut away clothing and flesh in a smooth, shining line.

The angel let out a choked sob and tensed her wings, reflexive, but they were bound and pinned beneath her, useless. The table was metal and cold, and the scalpel was cold and metal, and her mind was numb, hollow, scraped-out, bleak, full of fear, full always of so much fear, and she was learning so much.

The starry-eyed professor calmly began to peel back skin and muscle, working bare hands into the bloody opening, and the angel bit the inside of her cheek and tried not to scream. One of the students leaned in, avid, hungry, dabbed a finger in her blood. She shut her eyes.

“Observe. Can anyone name a major difference from human anatomy?”

A few tentative answers from the students, as the edges of the incision began to slowly knit back together, the angel shuddering and squirming at the crawling sensation. The bonds held fast, metal burning cold against her wrists. The scalpel came down, extended the cuts again with merciless precision, then dug in further.

“Pay attention, Dulcinea,” the professor said, mild, almost pleasant, “you aren’t exempt from this lesson. Open your eyes. Can you identify this organ?” A sodden lump of flesh was held up for her inspection, still dripping blood.

The answer pulled itself out of her throat, all but unbidden, harsh and choking, “L-liver.”

“Very good. And can you name any of the properties and uses of the liver? Human, angel, or otherwise, dear.”

She tried to answer, she had to try, but she could feel air caressing her bare ribs as she gasped for breath, she could feel a dozen predatory star-eyed stares, she could feel the tangible pressure of fear and defeat and rot buzzing inside her head and all she could force out were choked, inarticulate sounds. The teacher sighed, set the liver down, began extracting another organ with precise, careful cuts, and the angel’s voice rose into a pained scream before she could stifle it.

“Never mind, Dulcinea, that’s enough. You,” the bloody scalpel flicked up briefly to point at a Rider student, “what do you think?”

An interminable period of question-and-answer, as more organs were stripped out, arrayed neatly around the table. The occasional question directed at her, the driving necessity of attempting some kind of answer, kept the angel from simply tuning out, detaching from the pain of the body. Her flesh kept blindly trying to heal, had to be cut back into shape more than once, and blood, there was so much blood.

“Now, this particular specimen has a few irregularities,” click-click and the bloody scalpel was set down in its tray, exchanged for another tool, “However, most of the basic organs are intact, and the main defect is at least a useful curiosity..”

Something heavier than the scalpel - the angel refused to look, grasped and held tight to the small mercy of not being forced to look - drew down along her ribcage, split and splintered bone. The professor’s sure, steady hands worked their way inside and beneath, drew her apart, laid her open hollow and bare before the Riders’ empty eyes.

Hands reached into the torn-asunder cage and gently cupped around the absence of a heart, cradled the emptiness there and picked it up. The angel was still and quiet, breathing shallow. The teacher was making some long and droning point about hearts, nothingness, and the nature of reality, too much for the angel to follow. Her thoughts were thick and tarry and squirming and slow but she would not die. She would not die. She would not die. Here flayed open in a land impossibly far from the sun, despairing and fearful and defeated she still would not give in. Something persevered.

The absence of a heart was deposited gently back in her chest, and the angel breathed in again, in great swelling sobs. The Riders filed out of the room, their professor drying bloodstained hands on a towel. The room was left dark, and in time the angel was able to recover, free herself of all but the heavy bindings on her wings. Head buzzing with shadows and fear, she made her way down the long, bare hallways to her next class, unable to think of doing anything else.


	2. blasphemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my eye fell for a moment on the beautiful phrase "dulcinea/jasmine ribcage fisting" in chat backscroll and that's exactly the kind of abstract horseshit i'm unironically into  
> surprisingly wholesome as ribcage fisting goes. fully consensual, a serendipitous interaction of magical abilities makes it basically harmless.

Jasmine combed fingers idly through Dulcinea’s hair, and Dulcinea did not quite react but neither did she pull away. The room was all but pitch-dark, not that this was an obstacle for either of them; Dulcinea’s soul-self outline burned bright and clear to Jasmine’s eyes, and for her own part, Dulcinea’s movements only ever seemed more sure and certain in this kind of gloom, not less. Besides, there were other senses than sight to savor; the warmth, the texture of her (messy, unbrushed) hair, the smell of coffee and disinfectant imperfectly covering the less wholesome shades of failed or gruesome experiments. One of Dulcinea’s hands, still gloved, was resting on Jasmine’s hip, tentative and light and uncertain.

“You’re so twisted up inside,” Jasmine murmured, low, “you’re broken and grinding against yourself, and at the same time, you want such glorious things, you want to fix the entire world - oh, Dulcinea, I would sculpt you into something beautiful, if only I could -“

“You can’t, and I’d prefer to stay as I am,” she agreed, “though I appreciate the offer.”

“You say that, but you haven’t seen what I’d make of you. Radiant beyond words…”

“Am I not, already?” A hint of a smirk, a flash of bravado that Jasmine knew, practically SAW, was empty, papered over a dense heavy shape of self-loathing, and the urge to twist and shape and mold the flesh into something that would SOLVE her puzzle-box of broken parts was palpable. But there was no key to be had, for Dulcinea, no heart, and so instead Jasmine kissed her lightly on the cheek, held her a little closer.

“You are indeed,” she affirmed, and asked, “May I?”

Dulcinea nodded, and Jasmine leaned in for another kiss, on the lips this time, longer and slower. And she took her good right hand, and reached into the chest of Dulcinea de Montreal, through fabric and flesh and bone effortless she reached, and touched nothing at all. The heart of her, it wasn’t destroyed, or even truly separated from her; Dulcinea was alive and vibrant and stubbornly resistant to being turned into a fantastical giant living mecha no matter HOW logical and cathartic it would definitely be. But her heart wasn’t there in her chest, either, to be pulled out. Dulcinea had even shown her, once, the machine she’d built around it, an achingly glorious thing of polished metal and intricate wires. Jasmine had forced herself to contain a shameful and impolite urge to tear the beautiful machinery apart with her bare hands to grasp at the living pulsating core.

What she touched right now, though - up to her elbow in Dulcinea’s chest with no apparent difficulty, intimately close together in the dark - there was something beyond the absence-of-a-heart, something she knew better than to try and draw back out and look at. It was slick and clinging, viscous, wet, it was dead center of the cracks running through Dulcinea and it had its tendrils in her, set deep. To hear her tell it, this was a vile blasphemy and the worst sort of blessing, an evil curse awaiting its moment to rage against the world. To Jasmine’s mind, the lie that was Creation deserved a little rage, but it would kill Dulcinea to release it, and the other people hopelessly entangled in Reality through no fault of their own probably wouldn’t care for the side-effects. Still: here, now, nestled in its accustomed place, caught up in the hollow of Dulcinea’s ribs, the blasphemy swirled against Jasmine’s fingers, almost ingratiating in its sickly and malevolent way, and Dulcinea’s breath stuttered and caught in her throat.

Now the stoic façade was breaking down, now Dulcinea’s gloved hands grasped and clung to Jasmine like she was a lifeline, an anchor. Jasmine kissed her again, a few more times, not for the sake of the magic, just to feel her and be close to her and listen to her gasp in air when the kisses broke away. But mostly she just watched, savored the little twists, the subtle shake of the limbs, the mild and subtle transformations of Dulcinea, from scornful and dignified goddess of nightmare to something nearly open and vulnerable, very nearly human.

Not change enough to really satisfy. Not enough to make the flesh as clay and the bones a glorious unfolding scaffolding for something new - not enough to break Reality’s cruel hold, the tyrannical demand that her body should remain the same one moment to the next.

But if Jasmine crooked her questing fingers, thus, through the thick and clinging substance of her blasphemy, a soft moan fell from Dulcinea’s lips, a rare sound, something to be treasured. And that was good.


	3. wayward hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> further misuse of jasmine's heart magic, but definitely still like, fun & consensual misuse  
> soulless bodies get reduced down to "it" pronouns, if that bothers

The tension in both of them practically shouted itself to Jasmine’s sight, shivering in the outlines of their light, telegraphed by every movement and impulse. Leonardo was sullen, moody - well, when wasn’t he - but Jasper was withdrawn and tired, too, frustrated with something. Not with him, at least, given the way they were nestled against one another, Leonardo’s arm draped a touch awkwardly around her, leaning into her warmth as she takes support from him.

“You both look exhausted,” Jasmine says, leaning in to smooth a lock of hair away from Jasper’s forehead and lightly kiss her temple. Leonardo gets an affectionate ruffle of his already messy hair, which prompts a halfhearted grumbling. “You ought to take better care of yourselves.” She sits down on Jasper’s other side, takes her hand and lets their fingers intertwine.

“It’s just been a long day,” Jasper sighs, repositioning minutely to be more inclusive of both sides of the cuddle.

“You poor thing.” Reality is such a cruel thing to endure the weight of, day after day, sunrise after sunrise. Another light kiss, to the cheek this time, perfectly innocent, but Jasmine can see the little internal ripples of how Jasper squirms under it, yearns for the next step further - she can feel the furnace-hot heart beneath rising to the surface eagerly, all anticipation. “Do you want me to fix it?” she asks, even with the answer already presenting itself to other senses. “Shall I take it all away, let you relax awhile? You won’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll make you my pretty little puppet.”

Jasper nodded, a faint, heartfelt, “Please,” breath a little shallower, heart beating a little faster. Leonardo was blushing, faint but unmistakable, when Jasmine raised her falling-star lack-of-eyes to meet his proper ones.

“And you?” Jasmine asked, gentle, not aiming to push. Sometimes he chose to hold himself aloof, and merely spectate, or he’d participate but with his mind and body intact, his heartless state affording him a certain measure of immunity. But sometimes -

“… Y-es,” Leonardo said, a touch hoarse, and Jasmine could see deeper than the stiff, reluctant tone. “I’d … like that, also.” His heart was elsewhere, but Jasmine could imagine it, bristling spikes and handles in equal measure, in every direction. So sweetly desperate for guidance, stability, care, so simultaneously afraid of vulnerability.

“Of course,” Jasmine promised. “Get yourselves ready, then. Unless you’re ready to give over your heart properly, Leonardo dear.”

“Touch the Superconductor and I’ll ship you to Eris,” Leonardo replied, without any real venom. Jasmine giggled and sat back, letting them have a moment of space. She let her ‘real’ eyes unfocus; the handful of times they’d done this, it was always more interesting to watch voidwards.

She was vaguely aware that their bodies had turned to face each other more fully, staring into each other’s eyes. Jasmine watched the lights of them mingle, sunlight and shadow, fear and hope. Some intangible tether stretched between the two, a lifeline, a pulse, strengthening with every beat. It was a connection wrought in blood and defiance, grasping and greedy and selfish and beautiful. Something settled [around/alongside/within] Jasper’s heart - the actual topology was impossible to describe - a second presence that encircled it, bore it up, beat in time with it until the two were made one.

In the flat, banal, lacking world of the mundane flesh, Jasper raised a hand and gently stroked Leonardo’s cheek; and he, in his turn, had lost some of that habitual wariness, surrendered more easily to touch and embrace without the self-conscious stiffness of before. Jasmine allowed them their moment, albeit impatiently. Before too long Jasper ended it, leaning in to give Leonardo one kiss, quick but no less tender, then turning to present Jasmine with the opportunity for the same.

Jasmine reached her good right hand into the Sun’s chest and thankfully did not burn, although the heat licked around her fingers and the heart she closed them on must surely be white-hot. She took her time pulling it out, even so, savoring the look of bliss on Jasper’s face, the echos of it that washed over to Leonardo’s. Both their hearts beat as one in her grip, and she willed calm and peace into them as she drew them out, willed them to set aside their burdens for a time.

The heart came free and shone radiant, almost too bright to comfortably look at. Jasmine admired her prize anyway, satisfied, barely noted the tension ebbing away from the left-behind flesh except as background reassurance that all was normal. The heart, or perhaps two hearts twined together, was neatly symmetrical, and a beautiful work of art - well, hearts generally were. For all its delicate offshoots and twisting, elegant curves, the glowing-hot surface was armored and unyielding and the points of each tine were wickedly sharp. Jasmine handled it with care and respect, admiring the strength it represented.

“Be at peace,” she murmured to it, caressing the curves and angles of it with one careful tracing fingertip, watching the nameless husks in front of her relax still more, slumped against each other. “Be relaxed, be well. I have you safe. You have each other. I’ll take care of you, trust me. Listen to me, trust me, I’ll take care of everything.”

Their bodies nodded along, in contented, hollow unison. Jasmine raised the heart to her lips and kissed it, felt it quiver.

“Love me,” she told their heart, “love each other. There’s nothing to think about but that love, and no need to worry about anything else. I love you. Know that I love you. Tell me ‘yes, Princess Apocynum.’”

“Yes, Princess Apocynum,” their bodies repeated, dutifully, and their heart thrummed in her hand,  _yes, yes_.

“Very good. You’re so good,” Jasmine praised them, allowed the flesh to move for the first time, letting the nameless bodies settle in new positions to either side of her this time. They cuddled up against her, shamelessly eager to be close to the heart’s radiance, and also to love that heart’s current owner. The body that had held Leonardo nuzzled the side of Jasmine’s neck; it had an unmistakable erection it was no longer bothering to hide.

“Are you feeling better, dear?” she asked. pulling one sun-warmed hand away to gently stroke through its black hair.

“Much better, Princess Apocynum,” said the flesh that had been Jasper’s, but that was all right, she knew it spoke for both of them. The other whimpered softly and bucked its hips against her, gave her an open and pleading look that Leonardo wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. “We love you so much,” Jasper’s body sighed out, worshipful, adoring, one hand almost absentmindedly fondling its own breast.

“And I love you,” Jasmine affirmed. “Go ahead, get your clothes out of the way. You won’t need them.”

By the power of the key in her hand she could have twisted the bodies into something new, torn their clothes asunder or subsumed the fabric into the changing flesh, and that approach certainly held its charms; losing the frail illusion of clothing would probably annoy them when all hearts were restored to their proper places, though. Besides, watching the two bodies meet in the middle over her lap and help each other out of their garments in uncanny accord was its own entertainment. Four hands moved with perfect, coordinated surety, and found opportunities to grope and caress newly exposed skin without missing a beat.

Jasmine sat back and watched the performance, licking and sucking idly at a projecting tine of the heart and watching the bodies shudder in unison each time. “Very good,” she said, open with her joy and delight in them, “you’re so wonderful. Don’t you forget that, even after. You’re wonderful and you love me and you love obeying me. It feels so good. You’re getting so turned on that it’s harder than ever to think, isn’t it? I can see it, you poor sweet things, you’ve got nothing at all to worry about. You can let go and I’ll take care of everything.”

The bodies, sun and shadow, melted into each other’s arms - not literally, although they might have if Jasmine had wished it - just a mundane intertwining, passionate kissing, and after a moment their combined attention switched quite seamlessly to Jasmine, open and sloppy and unreserved devotion. She luxuriated in it and in the sunlight warmth up her arm that still held the heart, in the caresses of four hands working in tandem and the fluttery, enthusiastic double heartbeat against her own palm.


	4. adoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and.. slamming Right back to torture.   
> this might theoretically be a prequel to 'dissection' if you ignore that i've flipped from dulcinea to leonardo, and also i wrote them something like six months apart, and wasn't really thinking about connecting the two. but, similar themes. now with 50% more specific deceiver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Adoration of Phasael...  
> ...forgives Phasael.  
> ...frees you.  
> ...feels good.  
> ...is a little over the top.  
> ...makes you happy that Phasael is alive.  
> ...celebrates Phasael's existence.  
> ...is wanting Phasael to love you.

The cell they threw him into is lit and warmed only by the bonfire blaze of his own wings, which isn’t much. He’s more blood than he is fire or feather at the moment, and bound at hand, foot, and wing too tightly to do anything but shiver and stare into the gloom. The cuts and broken bones will heal, are healing already; the cold black arrowheads are a different proposition, since he can hardly flex his hands, much less reach to pull them out. Every time his flesh tries to stitch together beneath them, the barbed points shift and tear something new. It’s probably by design. The Excrucians have had millennia to learn how to make an immortal hurt.

When he cries, tears slipping silently down his cheeks, it isn’t for the pain, or the bindings, or his capture. He cries in mourning for the death of the Sun - years ago now, only mere years. This imprisonment is nothing. He has survived his fall from Heaven, the war for Creation, and the drowning of Hell. This is minor. He has to believe that. When he’d realized he was in too deep and fled the Academy, he’d been careless; hadn’t realized the bleak Riders would saddle their white horses and follow to hunt him down. He was already planning his true escape, the ways, the obstacles, the means. Whatever wicked use the people of this sunless land thought to make of a fallen angel, he would deny them.

Voices, echoing, muffled by the thick walls, interrupt this line of thought; the angel stirs and cranes his neck warily toward the sound. Two voices, two pairs of feet. A pause, directly outside the door, some clanking of lock and chain, and then the heavy door swings open, and one of them steps through.

The Excrucian is richly dressed in formal, old-fashioned black with accents of silver and red, a common enough affectation. His hair is just as lightless-black as his clothes, flowing and unbound except for a few beads woven into the long, straight locks. He smiles, there, framed in the light of the hallway, and it’s an unexpectedly soft, radiant, beautiful thing. His eyes are blank and empty voids, of course, night and falling stars, but the expression they hold is unmistakable. Sympathy, kindness. It can’t possibly be genuine. The angel turns his head away, pointedly. Refuses to look.

“This is the little birdie you caught, hmm?“ to whoever is holding the door, apparently, and then, "Oh, you poor thing,” the Excrucian coos. Crosses the room to kneel beside him, heedless of the tacky, drying smears of blood on the stone. “Are you crying? Oh, darling.” By rights it should sound mocking, cruel, that saccharine sweetness coming from unreal Rider’s lips. Somehow he manages to make it sound genuine, or perhaps the fallen angel is too exhausted to tell the difference. There’s a friction in the air, a gentle, inexorable twisting in the threads of local ‘reality.’

Even a scholar and student of miracles as he is, the angel recognizes it too late, and by then it no longer seems important that an enchantment has been worked here. The Excrucian gently helps him into a seated position, letting him move at his own pace against his slowly-healing aches, but even those hardly matter against the slow swell of contentment bubbling warmly through him. It’s a foreign, unusual sort of joy, but not unpleasant; and the feeling’s more than a little bound up in the Excrucian beside him. Enjoying his mere presence. Thrilling at his touch.

He recognizes, belatedly, who this must be. The panic is slow to come, muffled and cushioned by the enchantment’s force. No angel could fail to have heard of the fate of Hukkok’s library, of the thousand other depredations, large and small; nobody who was bathed in the full, incredible, magnificent radiance of Phasael Mery-Harumaph’s presence could resist forgiving him for each and every one.

The devil manages to rally enough, just enough, to show his fangs in a weak snarl. Phasael smiles another radiant smile in response, runs a hand lightly through the devil’s feathered hair, and all objections wither unspoken in his throat. 

“Shh, shh,” Phasael hums, “There we are, darling. You know something?” he says, all wide-eyed, as though letting the helpless Imperator in on some great secret. “Obviously, angels are a delight. They have such  _focus_  when something pleases them, you know? Something they think is worthy.” He giggles, pure, bubbly delight, at some private joke. “But devils - devils are so broken and sad.” He runs fingertips over the vanes of a single feather, light mimicry of preening that sends a shiver up the devil’s spine. It feels so good, it has no right to feel so damn good. “And I guess that means you need me all the more, huh?”

The devil dips his head in concession, or exhaustion, or perhaps it’s gentle pressure from Phasael’s hand on the back of his head that prompts him into what Phasael clearly takes as a nod of agreement, and the Deceiver is too visibly delighted for him to find the strength to contradict. Torment, he was no stranger to; he could have stood firm against torture. Not against the gentle, velvet-lined guidance of being Deceiver-led, not when it feels so wonderful.

“I’m  _so_  glad,” Phasael affirms, and it gives him another spark of unaccustomed joy, knowing that Phasael is happy and Phasael is here, with him, hands roaming to investigate just how he’s been bound and chained. “It’s such a shame, seeing you tied up like this,” he sighs, utterly saccharine and utterly sincere, “you don’t really deserve it, do you? You wouldn’t do anything foolish, if I got your arms free?”

“No,” he rasps out, with a fleeting, dying ember of shame at how sincerely he means it.

Phasael nods, and the chains fall away at a touch, as easy as that. Only the ones keeping his hands locked behind the back below the wings, but even that is a relief, and doubly, triply, immeasurably more so when Phasael helps massage the prickling numbness from his cramped hands. The tender attention, soft, uncalloused hands running over his fingers and lightly testing the points of his talons, almost admiringly, almost as if he’s actually worthy of some fraction of attention himself… He’s yearning for any scraps and hints of Phasael’s approval, he realizes, numbly, somewhere below the part of him that is celebrating, exulting, overwhelmed with joy. 

“That’s all for now,” Phasael says, sweetly apologetic, touching the heavy bands of metal clamping the angel’s wings shut. “Later, perhaps. I’m sure your wings are magnificent, darling. All that fire…”

“It’s all right,” he says, and means it. It’s out of Phasael’s hands, probably, it’s enough of a gift to have his arms free. There’s nothing even to forgive, no question. As an absentminded aside, secondary really to the joyous attention he’s paying to Phasael’s entire existence, he tugs weakly at one of the half-dozen arrows that are still lodged under his skin. Grits his teeth against the pain as it shifts, fingers slipping on the thin shaft. "I’m sorry, could you - could you maybe - ”

“Hmm-mm. Ask me politely?” Phasael suggests, wide-eyed and mock-innocent, a finger theatrically tapping his chin.

He understands. It even seems almost reasonable. “Please,” he begs, low and hoarse and damnably sincere. “Phasael, please help me, I can’t -”

“Manners, from an Imperator!” Phasael exclaims, in obvious delight, and the angel reacts to the tone and not the insult, smiles back at him without really meaning to. “Of course, dear, let me see.”

It’s a dizzying privilege, every moment of Phasael’s hands on him, actually caring for him, probing delicately at the arrow-wounds. Painful, momentarily, with each tug (and sometimes he has the fleeting, misguided suspicion that Phasael is deliberately twisting and wrenching at the shafts, more than he really needs to, but it passes quickly each time and he’s ashamed to have even thought it) but as the wounds are allowed to close, and the pain is quickly soothed away by the beautiful euphoria Phasael is feeding into him, his tears are messy sobs of relief and joy, not mourning.

“Oh, you sweet thing,” Phasael murmurs, swipes a thumb over his cheek; it does little more than complicate the stream of tears with a thin smear of blood, but the gesture itself leaves his skin tingling. Phasael peers at the angel’s face intently, and the faint frown on his face is a worse punishment than any merely physical wound could be. “I still don’t quite have you, birdie. What’s missing?”

It’s hard to believe there’s anything ‘missing.’ A little frightening, to think that he’s clinging to an enemy of the world, sobbing and pathetic and overwhelmed with pure devotion, and there’s more to come, deeper to go. He isn’t supposed to have enough of himself left to be frightened at all, he supposes.

“I’m - I’m trying -” To please Phasael, or to get it over with, either one feeds into the same desire. He’s not sure he can take this kind of emotion much longer.

“Of course you are,” he says, almost curt, just an edge of dismissive. “Mm. Oh! Oh, I see -”

He pulls the angel’s lacerated and bloody robes open with one careless yank, exposes his chest and the hollowness beneath his chest, the raw hole where his heart had been. It hasn’t so much as closed over, in the years since the wound was made, even though the last scars from the Excrucian hunt are scabbed over and fading already. It wouldn’t be right, not for such a sacrifice.

“You’re damaged goods,” and there’s tight, bitter anger in Phasael’s voice. The sudden, mercurial shift leaves the devil reeling, all the parts of him that are ensnared and desperate for Phasael’s approval. Phasael’s fingers probe roughly at the wound, dig into the raw flesh. “I see, I see. No  _heart_. You can’t  _love_  me, not properly. Pathetic, broken little bird…”

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, tries to twist away from the questing, accusatory hand, from Phasael’s blunt nails digging in. “I, I - ”

“Shut up,” Phasael says, and the angel does, bites down on the wisp of fire that serves him for a tongue. “No, no, I’ll make this work, if it’s what the Headmaster wants. But you could have  _said_.” His tone has shifted to moody petulance, which is at least easier to bear than his anger.

“What do you - what is it you want with me? Please, can’t I…” he pleads, afraid he’ll do it, afraid he’ll want to do it, for Phasael, hoping idiotically, naively that if he agrees he’ll be allowed to keep that untouched scrap of himself intact.

“I told you to shut up,” Phasael says, already back to sugared pleasantness. It’s such a delirious relief knowing he’s no longer upset, that Phasael is happy, that the angel hardly pays attention to what he’s actually saying. “I didn’t want to do this, you know? It’s really a shame. But no hard feelings, I’m sure.”

And with methodical determination, Phasael begins hurting him.

The devil’s taloned hands are still free, but there’s no question of defending himself, of course. He tries to roll with the kicks and blows when he can, and they aren’t so formidable, really, because Phasael is no stronger than a human. It almost hurts more when he tugs against his bonds trying to open his wings in a feeble, reflexive attempt to curl them around himself than when Phasael actually plants the heel of his boot in his ribs. But there’s nothing he can really do to avoid it, and Phasael has all the time in the world, and the real weapon, the real hurt, is Phasael’s anger and disappointment, and knowing that he’s the cause. That Phasael won’t love him.

And when he’s a mess of bruises and blood and half-knit fractured bones and swimming in a haze of pain, and ashamed and distressed at his own helplessness and at the way Phasael had  _laughed_ , and still despite everything adoring, adoring,  _adoring_  Phasael Mery-Harumaph, the Excrucian kneels down and lovingly guides him to sit up again, takes his face in both his bloody-knuckled hands, every line of his expression impossibly sincere and earnest and kind.

“Oh, birdie,” he sighs out. “I really did hate having to do that, you know. I’m sorry.” The apology is light and careless, but the angel clings to it, desperately. Swallows it. Believes it. “Won’t you forgive me?”

He stares into the star-flecked void where Phasael’s eyes aren’t, licks blood and tears from a half-mended split lip. It’s insulting that he even thinks to ask. He leans adoringly into Phasael’s touch, and nods.

“I’m so, so glad,” Phasael murmurs. “I know you were scared, darling bird. It’s nearly over.” He breathes out, and the remaining chains and bindings open and fall away, leave the devil to teeter and slump into Phasael’s arms. He makes no attempt to move or take advantage of that freedom, just breathes there, limbs sprawled, wings an awkward, untidy, burning heap.

There’s that friction of a Deceiver trick grinding against reality again, a new shape forming in the air.

Phasael smiles, beatific, beyond reproach, and rips it all away; the adoration, the joy, the forgiveness, the desire, the _freedom_. It all dissipates back into unreality, takes some of what’s natural along - leaves the devil clear-headed but bereft, despairing, and trapped on some deep level, more surely than chains and locks could ever achieve.

Phasael Mery-Harumaph shoves the fallen, broken, wounded angel off himself and stands, looks down at his handiwork with a smile. He leaves the door ajar.

After a time, the angel rises to his feet, dull-eyed, weeping. Shuffles haltingly to the door. He has classes to attend.


End file.
